108 So. Pearl St.

108 So. Pearl Street. It is a nice little house, but dark with much need of paint. There is still light left, but no people. Not in the house or yard or the street. It is much like another world.

Up the street and down are shops with pine board shutters on the windows. The one shop still open has, what you say… statues? Has statues of plastic women dressed in hotsy-totsy underwear. I can see through window plain like day the boobies.

I come from a small village. There is no villages in the US of A, but near to St. Petersburg there is many, many, many. Very different. Now I live in San Francisco, in motel by name of “6” on Mason Street. I feel right now this moment a long way from both St. Petersburg and Mason Street. I do not feel welcome here, and not so safe. There is no trees, no grass. I cannot hear a bird.

I look at dark little house enough to know this is not my world. I wish to walk right this second now back up the long hill to Mason. I will return to my empty room…my empty world that is mine…

I am coward!

I see vision of myself clear as bell, running like scared little girl. I make decision to not run. I will do what I have come to do. I am here to knock on the door of 108 So. Pearl St., announce myself-- “I am your grand-father, Vlad Kisnky!” I will say to Alana, the daughter of my daughter, “I am most proud to meet you after all this too many years!”

I start on my way to knock on door and instead I knock into little boy who comes out from where, I don’t know! He holds a basketball bigger than himself.

I say, “Sorry, sorry little boy!” I ask, “Are you okay?”

He say, “It ain’t no thing but a chicken-wing, Slice!” He is not more tall than my belly-button. He say, “What is yo fool-self doin here, anyway?”

This is good question. I have no answer anymore. I think again I am not in my world and I must leave. I look at this little boy with skin like mocha cream.

“Okey-dokey,” I say and I start up the hill to Mason and again little boy, like gazelle, is in front of me! I almost knock him down a second time.

I say, “What? What little boy?” He say, “Why you here, old man?” He is not other than bold wipper-snapper, this boy! I go around him to continue with my climb. I hear, “You walk funny.”

I say nothing what so ever, for I have no words to say, but I stop, and I turn to face him. He begins to do the bouncing of the basketball. He does a… I don’t know what… a monkey-shines around me; bouncing, bouncing, bouncing the ball between his skinny legs, like bird-legs; he makes me dizzy just to watch.

And again I make my way up the hill.

I hear the bouncing and bouncing behind me. I keep walking. Kid says, “You look like you about to fall down!” I say, “Kid! If I disappoint you, is okay you go away!”

It is hot day, no cars, no people, no nothing but this little boy and me, and I have many blocks to climb to get back to my world. All I hear is bounce, bounce, bounce as inside my ears, I hear it! This kid! I turn and say, “Little boy, what is the reason for all this bouncing of the ball?” He tells me he is going to play for Lakers. I say, “I don’t know of this Lakers,” he say “You heard of Kobe Bryant, right?” I say, no, I do not know this man. He say, “Are you fuckin’ with me, home-slice?” I say “Kid, I am not fucking with you.” He turns and shows me the back of himself. It says Kobe on his shirt. I say, “Oh, yes, Kobe,” and he say, “KoBEE! Not Kobe! KoBEE!”

He is back to the bouncing of the ball. He wears trousers only past his knees. He looks at me in the eyes showing me he can bounce his ball with not a look to the ball as it bounces. He’s got a grin on his face that reaches into my chest and into my heart!

He thinks he is being a clever boy with the bouncing of the ball and his eyes on my eyes. I can see only his grin. A grin now that lights his face. It is a grin from my wife, and from my daughter, and it is the grin I have searched for these too many months.

The boy says, “You okay?” I say, “Yes, I am most okey-dokey!” He says, “You look like you could use an ice-cream cone!” I tell this little boy, Yes! I can use ice-cream cone! “One for you too!” I say, and I give him a ten dollar bill. He says, “You gonna have to cough up a few more shekels…” He wiggles fingers at me. I take his ball and give him another ten dollar bill and tell him to hurry and I sit down to wait as my great-grandson runs down the sidewalk on his bird-legs. He runs into the shop with the statues. I can not think about this! It does not look an ice-cream parlor to me, but I am too much in glee! What do I know from ice-cream parlors? If he does not return, I know where he lives; 108 So. Pearl St. But I have no worry. He will return. He is good boy.

And I have his basketball.

-971 words-